The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek

“Pa buried him out in the yard under a tall pine along with my courting candle.” 

When Charlie Frazier dies, Pa’s hopes for Cussy Mary’s marriage (that she will be respectable and protected) die as well. The burial of the candle represents his setting this wish aside. Later, he puts out a new courting candle for Jackson Lovett. 

“Being able to return to the books was a sanctuary for my heart. And a joy bolted free, lessening my own grievances, forgiving spent youth and dying dreams lost to a hard life, the hard land, and to folks’ hard thoughts and partialities.” 

Cussy Mary and many of the patrons on her route find solace in the books she delivers. These lines illustrate the extent to which the books provide comfort and escape both for her and for other people in the area. It is through their shared pastime of reading that they create a supportive community.

“She slipped her hand into mine, and I stiffened. No white ever touched a Blue friendly like that. No one but Angeline. And no matter how many times she’d reached for my hand, it still felt strange, and I’d quietly tuck it back to my side, feeling I’d somehow left a sin on her.” 

Angeline shows that she does not share the prejudice many others, including her husband, have towards Cussy Mary. However, Cussy Mary is uncomfortable accepting her friendly gesture. She has internalized the negative attitudes about her skin so much that she feels that touching another person is inherently a sin.

“A sneaky time thief is in them books. There’s more important ways to spend a fellar’s time.” 

Pa’s attitude towards reading is one shared by many others in the area, including Devil John. Pa’s indulgence of the habit in both Cussy Mary and her mother shows his love for them, as he accepts that they enjoy it and does not bother them much about it.

“But we Blues dared not mete out punishment if the harm was off our land.” 

As Blues, Cussy Mary and her father are held to a different set of standards than the White community around them. Here, Cussy Mary explains that people might understand punishing a trespasser, but that is as far as the Blues’ power extends. Later, when Pa kills Vester Frazier on their land, even this is proven to be wrong.

“The scrapbooks had become a vital part of the library project and were passed from one little home to another.”

The library scrapbooks collect pieces of information from the community and gather them in one place. In this sense, they serve as a symbol for Cussy Mary’s role in the community, linking them together. She is able to turn several people in the area into library patrons by sharing the scrapbooks with them. 

“Moffit knows a chicken is more valuable than human life here.” 

Doc’s quote illustrates the extreme poverty in the Kentucky hills at this time, when a chicken had great value. Furthermore, while Doc’s words seem to apply to the community at large, they also apply to the way he treats some of his patients: as property, or even as less valuable than property. 

“Well, them cloths are a lot like folks. Ain’t much difference at all. Some of us is more spiffed up than others, some stiffer, and still, some softer. There’s the colorful and dull, ugly and pretty, old, new ‘uns. But in the end we’s all fabric, cut from His cloth. Fabric, and just that.” 

Although Cussy Mary faces prejudice from many people in the area, others don’t see that her skin color makes her different from anyone else. Here, Loretta compares skin to cloth, showing that she does not share the same attitudes as those who look down on Blues.

“‘Blues don’t have to do much, Cussy,’ Pa said quietly, the words needling, raising the hairs on my nape and arms. ‘Blues and many a colored have been hanged for less.’” 

In this quote, Pa summarizes the dangers of the prejudiced attitudes surrounding the Blues and other people of color in their area. They are held to impossible standards and risk their lives over actions that would be accepted from White people. The cruelty of such attitudes is shown in the townspeople’s words and actions towards Cussy Mary, as well as in the greater risk of violence that the Blues run.

“‘You’ll be fine, dear.’ He snapped his attention back to the road. ‘Fine as one can be with chocolate-colored blood, I reckon.’” 

After examining Cussy Mary in the hospital, Doc drives her home. He treats her as less than human, both in the way that he has her handled at the hospital and in the way he delivers results: piece-by-piece and casually, as though they do not concern her. 

“What I wanted most was to be okay as a Blue.” 

While Cussy Mary longs to be part of the larger community, she does not actually want to have white skin. She simply wants to be accepted as she is, but she suspects that this will not happen while she has blue skin. However, her library patrons prove that this is not the case, accepting her both when her skin turns white and when it is blue.

“When you’re white, you’ll never have to worry about the likes of Fraziers, or others who might want to do you serious harm or worse because of your looks.” 

Doc tries to convince Cussy Mary that the tests he’s doing will benefit her by changing the color of her skin and making her safe. However, she does not have a problem with the color of her skin; the true problem is with the prejudice in the people surrounding her.

“Ain’t having a colored touch me an’ bring more infection.” 

Willie refuses to let Cussy Mary touch him, even when she is bringing him medical help, because of his prejudices. This reaction later turns out to be due to internalized prejudice, as it is revealed that he was also a carrier of the Blue gene. His attitudes towards blue skin color lead him to kill himself when he discovers his daughter has been born blue.

“You can’t feed one, Cussy Mary, without feeding them all. They all have the hunger, just some of their bodies are able to hide the sickness better than the others.” 

The extreme poverty in the region depicted in the book makes food scarce. This scarcity leads to a reliance on community, with a particular etiquette to be followed. Here, Winnie chastises Cussy Mary for trying to feed the starving Henry since she can’t give food to all of the children.

“He says he won’t give her hand to anyone in the We Poke Along program. Calls it lazy work.” 

Cole’s potential father-in-law initially refuses to let him marry Ruth because he works for the WPA. Here, as Cole recounts the contents of his letter to Cussy Mary, he provides an example of community attitudes towards the program, which were sometimes negative.

“For a minute I envied her, wanted to send Junia home, unlace my heavy, tight shoes, and run free with her to escape Frazier, the doc and his medical tests, and everything damning me—to hunt and fish in the woods like I’d done as a child. To be wilded.” 

Seeing Angeline hunting in the woods makes Cussy Mary nostalgic for her childhood. Notably, the activities above are ones outside of society, not involving other people in the community or the authority figures (Frazier, Doc) she mentions here. 

“No, sir, Sheriff, I never see a living soul on my book route—nary a one but my patrons.” 

Though Cussy Mary is generally honest, she stretches the truth to the sheriff here to protect herself and her father when he asks if she’s seen Vester Frazier. Of course, she saw his body after her father killed him, but by phrasing her answer this way, she is able to sound as though she did not.

“‘I don’t need consent, Thomas. I could quarantine her. It would be, say, in the public’s best health interest,’ he said slyly. ‘My duty to the people—’” 

Dr. Mills, Doc’s Lexington colleague, shows the lengths to which authority figures in the book are willing to abuse that authority. Here, he threatens to commit Cussy Mary to the hospital for study against her will, treating her as less than a person.

“Before today, I couldn’t imagine there would be such opportunities in my blue world. Now, my mind slipped over her bubbly talk, and it stole away to new thoughts of what might be, what I might become, dipped into fanciful worlds away from here.” (Chapter 29, Page 197)

As Cussy Mary’s friendship with Queenie deepens, her horizons broaden. Queenie has ambitions for herself away from Kentucky, and she is eventually able to achieve her goals. This provides Cussy Mary with another example of what her life could be like. 

“Those that can’t see past a folk’s skin color have a hard difference in them. There’s a fire in that difference. And when they see you, they’ll still see a Blue. No city drug’s gonna change small minds, what they think about peculiarity.” 

Pa warns Cussy Mary that even though her skin color has changed, the townspeople will still have the same attitudes about her. This prophesy comes true as she goes to the Independence Day picnic. However, the flip side of this is also true: There are also people who respected her before and still do now.

“The drug had not redeemed me.” 

Cussy Mary realizes that Pa was right. Here, she understands that her skin color was not the problem to begin with; it was the attitudes of the people around her. Even turning her skin white didn’t make her acceptable to them.

“Blue had to be enough for me, I vowed.” 

As Cussy Mary builds her community, she comes to accept herself for who she is. She decides that she will stop taking the medicine that makes her feel ill, instead reverting to her former blue skin color. 

“‘Cussy Mary,’ he’d said. ‘I’ll be needing this for my daughter when she gets her first courter.’ 

Although Cussy Mary is enraged to see the courting candle out again after her horrific first marriage and throws it into the yard, she is surprised to see Jackson Lovett pick it up. In these lines, he makes it clear that he wants to marry her and raise Honey with her; Honey is the daughter who will need the courting candle.